How the Medium an Artist Use Affects the Novel

1498 Words3 Pages

Part One Point of View In this first portion, I will discuss point of view, and its various effects on the reader’s interpretations of the story. Point of view is the perspective from which the story is told. Each point of view brings a specific flavor to the story, depending on how each one is used. First person can be intimate or completely cold, while third person can give the thoughts of all the characters or leave the reader completely in the dark. The first story I chose was The Tramp by Szczepanski. The story was in third person, and it allowed the reader to get the ideas and feelings of the characters within the story. It effects the reader’s interpretation of the story, because it gives the reader the motives of the different characters, as seen when there becomes a discrepancy about whose gun is used to kill the tramp. The second story I selected was Nabokov’s The Admiralty Spire. What I found interesting about it was that it was written in first person, but also in letter form. This type of perspective only gives the reader the author of the letter’s point of view, and forces them to either accept or reject the author’s ideas and claims. The third story was Turgenev’s Bezhin Meadow, in which the point of view is also first person, but this first person point of view effects the reader’s interpretation because the reader, again, must accept or reject the narrator’s view of the world and its inhabitants. In Bezhin Meadow, the author also describes a group of children he ends up passing the night with. These descriptions effect the interpretation of the rest of the story, because the narrator sets it up with his first person observations. In the last story, Love, by Olesha, the use of third person allows the reader to ... ... middle of paper ... ... as far as characters go, because if the artist does not portray the original characters properly, or even tastefully, the audience could grow to dislike the characters they are supposed to identify positively with. The medium of a movie affects the artist’s treatment of the story-material also when it comes to setting. The artist can stick to the original, or try something entirely new, which Mr. Davenport did. By placing it in a different period, he allowed the audience to experience it either in a more close, intimate frame of time, or, in my case, in a time that is still slightly removed. The medium affects the artist’s treatment of the story-material, because he has to make critical decisions about what to use, what to change, and what to leave out. He has to please his audience, while, simultaneously trying to tell his story, or, rather his version of it.

Open Document